The "Wow" Factor

[alexniedra]

In my opinion, one of the most fullfilling things about event/people photography is the recipient's reaction to your work.






Today I got to do plenty of family portraiture at my sister's graduation at the University of Toronto. We just went through all of the images together, and the feeling I got when my family said Wow! was beyond words. It felt great, and is very encouraging. They liked the following shot in particular.



Critique and comments are welcome!





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[TheRoff]

I like it. It really works in B&W, and certainly tells the story.


Larry

[Sean Setters]

I like it too. Very well framed. The compositional elements work very well to tell the story of her graduation (like the above poster said).

[Madison]

I love this shot. Do you postproces to black & white in a certain way? Your B&W treatment is wonderful.

[Benjamin]

Convocation hall, I was there on Wednesday for one of my friends convocation.


Nice shot by the way, and congrads to your sister[]

[piiooo]

I like your focal lenght choice.


I like the story telling of this picture.


I like the composition very much. I second Sean's comment 100%. I like the way the window head halloes around your sister's head.


I think that your post processing is very good, but foremost I think you did a hell of a job with real time composing in your camera.

[Bill M.]

Really nice pic alexniedra, I concur that it works great as a B&W image. Were you using a fish-eye or something like the 10-22?


It is satisfying when you get nice responses from family and friends on your photography. Sometimes you know when you've got a really nice shot, and expect people to react to it, but then it's always funny when people pick out shots that you might not think are that great but you get a "wow" out of it. Hey, I look at it all as positive reinforcement for investing in more equipment! Or at least justifying it to the wife! []

[Colin]

Great job. What they said. Particularly how you used the wide angle to further the composition. Terrific.

[alexniedra]

Firstly, thanks for the comments everyone! Benjamin, thanks! Yeah, that's convocation hall - It's a nice building.

Were you using a fish-eye or something like the 10-22?

I used the Tokina 12-24 at 12mm, and as I remember, f/9.0 to add depth to the image. I had a vision of this shot moments before I took it, and the biggest success here, IMO, is that I was able to capture exactly what I was imagining a few moments earlier with the camera.


I shot in Jpeg and Raw, and applied the "Monochrome" picture style in black and white. In Lightroom 2.0, I boosted contrast and the blacks until I got the look I wanted.

Hey, I look at it all as positive reinforcement for investing in more equipment! Or at least justifying it to the wife! [img]/emoticons/emotion-5.gif[/img]

Hmm... That would be nice - My dad did mention he was shooting at 1/30 sec. with the 55-250 during the ceremony... And mentioned the potential need for a faster telephoto lens[]


All in all, it was really fulfilling to shoot this sort of event, and realized I love it. I've been starting to shoot a lot events like this for friends and family lately (for free - I give them CD's), and they have been very happy with the results I can put forward.

[Keith B]

Very cool shot Alex. I love the wide angle.